Eastland: Chicago's Deadliest Day

Overview

EASTLAND: CHICAGO'S DEADLIEST DAY is the dramatic story of how hundreds of immigrant factory workers and their families, setting out for leisurely summer cruise, died aboard a heavily loaded steamship that tipped over while still tied to the dock in downtown Chicago. ...and how the rich and powerful who were responsible got away with it. First-generation relatives of victims recount how the tragedy affected their families for decades while original court documents dug out of the National Archives reveal that the Eastland's owners knew of the ship's stability problems months before the disaster yet rolled the dice as innocent immigrant passengers boarded on July 24, 1915 for a Western Electric company picnic.